


And the Sky on Such a Restless Night

by halfpenny



Series: Rough and Tumble [5]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, rough-and-tumble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-09
Updated: 2009-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:55:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpenny/pseuds/halfpenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy’s on the far side of the shuttle and while he doesn’t exactly watch her, he never quite takes his eyes off her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Sky on Such a Restless Night

  


With all the rumors and the reputation, it was easy to forget at times that the _Enterprise_ was just like any other starship in the Fleet. Granted, serving under James T. Kirk did result in a higher than average degree of action, but in between death-defying engagements, like for an enlisted officer was pretty routine. There were inspections and assessments; uniforms to be cleaned and meetings to be attended. Certain duties came standard in Starfleet. Fortunately, so did certain privileges.

Shore leave on a deep-space mission like the _Enterprise’s_ usually meant a weekend on an orbiting trading post or a tech station if the ship needed serious repairs. Just one set of metal walls traded for another. Christine recalls learning about the origin of the term shore leave in her history classes. On the ancient seas, sailors would stagger off their wooden vessels and spend their leave on sandy beaches basking in glorious sunshine. It’s the one thing Christine envies about the explorers of the past. It doesn’t really matter whether or not she gets back home all that often. Christine doesn’t have much family left on Earth to make a trip back worthwhile. Her parents and grandparents are all buried back in New Orleans, and she’s not close with her few, scattered cousins. Still, the news that their latest reconnaissance mission has brought them within warp distance of Earth in time for shore leave makes Christine feel giddy.

Ten days. Ten days on terra firma. Ten days of fresh air and non-replicated food with thousands of miles of atmosphere between Christine and medical equipment of any kind. She all but skips onto the shuttlecraft. The shuttle is mostly full of engineers with a couple bridge officers. Lieutenant Sulu sits next to Uhura, who’s giggling at something he’s said. Commander Spock stares at the pair of them with something like disapproval in his face. Vulcans probably consider humor to be vulgar as well, Christine muses and then feels awful for even thinking something like that about a decimated race.

McCoy’s on the far side of the shuttle and while he doesn’t exactly watch her, he never quite takes his eyes off her. She particularly likes how the muscles in his jaw work when Kimmel slings an arm over the back of her seat. She holds McCoy’s gaze for a moment as the tech prattles on about his leave plans, and imagines the doctor striding over and knocking Kimmel’s arm away. She flushes and tells herself she’s in public, for God’s sake, get a hold of yourself. She leans away from Kimmel and he catches her drift, deciding to focus his attention on Yeoman Rand instead. When Christine looks back at McCoy, he nods almost imperceptibly and her stomach drops.

They don’t talk when the shuttlecraft lands and an automated voice instructs them to gather their belongings and enjoy San Francisco. He waits for her to catch up with him once they disembark onto the sterile-smelling shuttleport. They walk through the crowds of officers and family members together, their steps clicking on the tile floor in tandem. Outside the port, Christine closes her eyes and turns her face up to the warm breeze while McCoy hails a cab. He gives the driver his address. The ride to his apartment building is silent. Halfway there, McCoy begins tracing tiny circles on the inside of her knee and Christine rethinks just how much time she’s going to be spending outdoors in the next ten days. Well, it’s not like she’s never seen the city before, so a couple days inside won’t matter one way or the other. McCoy overpays the driver and holds the lobby door for Christine. Her heart pounds like she ran the whole distance from the port. She can see beads of sweat forming at McCoy’s temples.

They stand toward the back of the turbolift. It’s not crowded, but they’re certainly not alone. That doesn’t stop McCoy from palming her ass. He kneads at her with strong, sure strokes and Christine takes deep, even breaths to keep from moaning. The elevator chimes for his floor and the second the lift doors hiss shut, they drop their duffles and launch themselves at each other. Christine recognizes on some level that she’s making these desperate little mewling noises against McCoy’s mouth. Not close enough, she can never get close enough to this man. He’s tugging at the hem of her shirt and all she can think is how badly she wants to bite and tear at him until there’s nothing left between them.

McCoy guides them blindly toward his door and swipes his ident card through the scanner. He’s pulling her forward, toward him and heat and the waiting bed Christine now knows she will spend the next ten days in when a small, piping voice says, “Daddy?” Christine freezes and carefully untangles herself before stepping through the door after McCoy. A little girl, no, not so little, Jesus she’s twelve if she’s a day is hugging McCoy, who looks exactly halfway between pleased and stricken.  The girl squints around her father, God, her father, and stares down Christine. She has her father’s frown. “Who’s that?” McCoy clears his throat, then clears it again.

Christine rolls her eyes and sticks out one hand. “Hi, I’m the girlfriend.” The girl squints harder at her then grabs the outstretched hand and pumps it. Joanna McCoy has one hell of a grip.

*

According to Joanna, Starfleet contacted her mother to inform her that Doctor McCoy would be on shore leave. Joanna took a transport all by herself from Louisville to San Francisco to spend some quality time with her father. She’s on break from school, but brought a backpack full of books to keep up with the homework. It’s not that McCoy isn’t thrilled to see his baby girl who looks so much like her mother when she smiles, it’s a little scary. He is, and on a deep, meaningful level, he’s glad that Joanna gets to see Christine out of uniform and off-duty. It’s just that his plans for his leave have taken a drastic turn in the last three days. Before Joanna surprised him, he had thought as far ahead as tying Christine to his headboard with his belt. He had not bothered to think beyond that point. The last few days had gone somewhat differently than planned.

The three of them had gone out to dinner and a film. They hit the beach and McCoy toyed with Christine’s hair while Joanna ran in and out of the water. Christine and Joanna had gone shopping on their own, citing the need for some “girl time,” whatever the hell that meant, and returned with new sandals for Joanna and some kind of perfume for Christine. It made her smell like cut honeysuckle, the kind that used to climb the garden walls back in Kentucky and after he told her that yes, he liked it fine, he excused himself to the bathroom and took the coldest shower of his life. Afterward he scrubbed a rough towel through his hair. He stared himself down in the mirror and gripped the edges of the sink. He will not, he thought clearly and distinctly, harbor uncouth thoughts about Christine while his thirteen year old daughter slept down the hall. He was a grown man. He could contain himself for a week. He steps out of the bathroom as Christine reaches for the handle. Her gaze slips down to where the damp towel is riding low on his hips. She glances behind her and McCoy can hear Joanna banging around the kitchen. Slowly, with the pad of her finger, Christine traces an errant droplet of water down his chest, and everything in McCoy tightens. She smiles, suddenly shy, and ducks into the bathroom. McCoy holds very still in the hallway, ignoring the water puddling around his bare feet. Seven days. He’s pretty sure he can do seven days.

*

Christine has always liked kids. As an only child, she used to dream of a house full of siblings to play with, so she takes to Joanna like an Orion pirate to smuggling. Joanna’s a sharp kid with a good head on her shoulders and a solid, practical view of the world around her. Bit of a smart mouth, though. Christine likes her immensely. She’s spent the last week helping Joanna through her stacks of xenobiology homework, wondering if she had anywhere near that much schoolwork when she was Joanna’s age. While they go over the basic anatomical structure of a Horta, McCoy washes the dinner dishes and occasionally corrects Joanna’s answers from the sink. It’s cozy and sweet and positively domestic and Christine’s ready to crawl out of her fucking skin, and it’s all his fault.

Because he won’t touch her.

It’s been seven days without sex, which sounds ridiculous even to Christine, but she’s gotten used to regular-as-clockwork sex, damnit, and she’s going through withdrawal. There are three days left in her leave and if McCoy doesn’t step up the game, she’s seriously considering bringing some guy home from a bar. Not that it would help, Christine is sure. She doesn’t want sex, she wants McCoy, and now he’s humming as he dries their drinking glasses and she thinks about what his mouth feels like when he hums against her stomach and Christine wants to scream.

It’s not that she hasn’t tried. Lord above, has she tried. The first night, once introductions were over and knapsacks were unpacked and unexpected daughters tucked into bed, she reached for him across the sea of cool, clean sheets in his bed. He caught her wrists and rolled to her, and Christine felt the familiar heat spool up low in her belly. But before she could twine her fingers in his hair and pull, he kissed her lightly on the forehead, rolled back, and promptly went to sleep. Christine lay awake, blinking at the ceiling. What. The. Fuck? The last man who kissed her on the forehead was her foster father the day she enlisted in Starfleet, and he was really the last person she wanted to think about in bed with her lover. Little girls got kissed on the forehead. Children who needed soothing got kissed on the forehead. Christine is neither a little girl nor a child and since when was her mouth not good enough for a good-night kiss and fuck.

That was six nights ago. She’s been shut down with stunning regularity at every turn and the prickle from the first night has turned into an itch, and now that Joanna’s packing up her schoolwork and headed for her make-shift bedroom to holomessage her mother, and Christine’s alone with McCoy, the itch turns into a buzz, like someone has flipped on an electric current just under her skin. She pushes her chair back and leans over his shoulder. “How’s the cleaning going?”

He grunts in response before wiping his hands on a dish rag and turning around quickly enough to bump into her. She grabs his hips to steady herself and for a moment, McCoy looks almost pained. He wipes a rag over the kitchen table and it hits Christine like a slap. That stupid son of a bitch. Did he think he was being noble or some bullshit? Well, she decides as he runs the rag through the sonic cleaner, that stops right now. McCoy smiles at her, soft and affectionate, and Christine smiles back. Poor bastard. Such good intentions.

*

McCoy wonders if this is what it’s like to die of thirst. This constant, low-level aching for something just out of reach. Only it’s not out of reach, it’s standing right there, looking at him like he’s an idiot. And he is, but he’s a moral idiot. For once in his life, he’s doing the right thing by his daughter and his woman, and if he has to spend the next three days half-hard in his trousers for her, then so be it. Nothing new on that front considering the last week. He keeps waiting for this need, this craving for her, to fade, to cool and subside. It doesn’t. If anything, it gets worse. Christine’s got a funny expression on her face, like he’s said something particularly dense, but before he can ask her about it, she takes ahold of one of his hands and presses a kiss to his palm. It’s a chaste gesture, but that doesn’t stop his cock from twitching. He smiles tightly at her. She bats her eyes and pulls one of the chairs out. She drops his hand and plants one palm in the center of his chest. And pushes.

He stumbles backward and down into the waiting chair. “What the hell?” he says, but Christine puts one finger to her lips and shakes her head. She leans out of the kitchen and nods to herself. She ambles across the kitchen until she’s standing between his sprawled legs. She looks down at him and cocks her head to one side, considering, calculating. McCoy’s seen her peer into open wounds that way and it makes him nervous. Then she sinks to her knees.

This is not happening, he thinks as Christine slides her warm hands over his thighs in firm, sure strokes. He’s asleep on the _Enterprise_ and any moment now, the computer will wake him and he’ll spend the rest of the day up to his elbows in ungrateful patients. Head Nurse Christine Chapel is not kneeling between his legs, her clever fingers undoing his belt and fly. She is definitely not breathing hot, damp pants over his dick. She is absolutely not slipping his cock out and trailing fleeting, feather-light kisses up and down the shaft. Her free hand rubs patterns on this stomach, one thumb mimicking the circles the other is massaging into his balls. His head drops backward and he grabs the back of her head, lost to the heat of her mouth, oh fuck, her mouth around his dick, and she’s sucking and ohholyshit. “Christ,” McCoy moans and then remembers why he really should keep it down. He pushes her off him, which is quite possibly the worst thing he’s ever had to do. “Fucking hell, Chapel,” he says and her dark eyes get darker. She loves it when he slips and calls her that. “You can’t fucking waiting three more days until my kid is gone?”

She looks up at him from the kitchen floor of his shitty apartment, all wide eyes and bruised lips, and McCoy realizes no, she can’t wait anymore and God damn, God fucking damnit, neither can he. He gestures to the doorway. “Is she—?” he asks. Pleasure and relief flood Christine’s face and if he wasn’t going to fuck her before, he would just to make her look like that for as long as possible.

“Door’s closed. She takes forever on the holomessager. I need—” Christine starts, but McCoy knows, fuck does he know what she wants. But if she thinks she’s getting off easy just because he’s dying for it, too, she has another thing coming.

McCoy slides off the chair and shoves her flat on her back. “Yeah? What do you need, Chapel, huh? You need to get fucked, girl?” Christine closes her eyes and sinks her teeth into the softness of her lower lip. She starts to writhe under him and he hasn’t even touched her. Fuck, this woman. “You need it? Need it so fucking bad you’d go down on me with my goddamn kid down the hall? Huh, baby?” She nods, clawing at the bottom of his shirt. He slaps her hands away. “Tell me.”

“Need it, oh God, Leonard, need you to fuck me so hard, ah, want it so much it hurts.” McCoy has to shut his eyes and count to five to make sure he doesn’t come from the words spilling out of her gorgeous, filthy mouth. He jacks himself quickly and fits his hips to hers. He slams into her and she opens her mouth to scream or beg or both, and he claps a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, like the first time months ago. He works the other between them to where she’s hot and throbbing. He jerks into her deep and coarse, no finesse, no rhythm, only the muffled sounds of their breathing to mark the time. He comes too quickly, but she’s close enough for him to bring her off with him still hard inside her, and she sighs like sobbing into his palm. When he takes his hand away to stroke at her hair, she’s whispering, probably has been for a while. _Thank you, thank you, thank you_. Painfully, impossibly, he comes again listening to her, spasming until his lower back cramps and he drops, exhausted, to the ground beside her.

Crazy, he thinks as he looks over at her, lovely and fucked-out, how much he needs this woman. Crazy how much he loves her. Christine starts giggling softly, which McCoy knows means she’s starting to come down. He staggers up and leans down to pull her to her feet. “My knees are killing me,” he grumbles and Christine giggles hard. Must have been a good one, he thinks, as she brushes her hair back to some semblance of tidiness. “I’m too old for quickies on the kitchen floor.”

Christine leans forward and kisses the very tip of his nose. “Cheer up, old man,” she says. “Next time, I’ll do all the work.” He reaches behind her and slaps her soundly on the ass. She squeaks and jumps forward into him, and he kisses her, easy and quick, then slower. Christine giggles into his mouth and he kisses her until the giggles give way to soft, hungry sighs. When she pulls back, she looks sweaty and sleepy and McCoy wants to do nothing for the rest of his life but lie in a bed with this woman. “Come one,” she says and tugs him toward the bathroom. “I need a shower and sleep.”

Sleep, McCoy thinks as he lets her lead him toward what promises to be a very different type of shower than the ones he’s been taking lately. He’ll sleep when he’s dead. “Hey Chapel,” he says. “Grab my belt, would you?”


End file.
